The European Union (EU) and Turkey began their first ministerial meeting on the opening of Turkey's accession talks, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced in the early hours of Tuesday.

"We have just made history," Straw told a press conference. "We've had the first ministerial meeting on the opening of accession negotiations."

He said in a jocular way that they were able to meet the Oct. 3 deadline set by EU leaders in December because he began to speak before midnight London time. "This is presidency time," said Straw amid laughter from journalists.

Britain holds the EU rotating presidency.

Straw said the first ministerial meeting began with an opening statement by him, following by a statement of EU commissioner for enlargement, Olli Rehn and one from Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. Then the first formal session of inter-government conference of accession negotiations was declared open, Straw told the press conference.

The first meeting is seen to be symbolic.

Straw played down religious differences between Turkey, a Muslim country, and the EU, which is basically Christian, saying that the EU was built on values, not religion.

Gul said it is a win-win situation for his country and the EU as well as the world.
 
Gul promised that reforms required by the EU will continue.

"Turkey is determined to carry on with the reforms" with or without EU because Turkish people want them, said Gul.

He said 10 years later, Turkey will be different and will become an asset of the EU. Accession talks are expected to last at least a decade.

He asked the EU to keep its promises and pledged his country will keep its own.

Gul sidestepped questions on Cyprus and Greece, a thorny issue in Turkey's accession talks.

The foreign minister said he hoped for a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus issue under the auspices of the United Nations. On relations with Greece, he said they were not too bad and that there were even contacts between the two military.

Ankara refuses to recognize the Greek-Cypriot government in the south, which represents the whole Republic of Cyprus in the EU, and wants independence of the Turkish-Cypriot north.

Rehn described the opening of talks as a new era in EU's relations with Turkey.

The accession talks were opened after EU foreign ministers struck a deal on Monday night after more than 30 hours of negotiations among the EU foreign ministers. Gul rushed to Luxembourg for the formal beginning of the talks.

Straw and 23 of his colleagues had to persuade Ursula Plassnik, the foreign minister of Austria, to drop Vienna's demand that Turkey should be granted a "privileged partnership" instead of full membership, should entry talks fail at the end.

Turkey had been unequivocal on its stand that such an option was totally unacceptable. Gul chose to wait in Ankara for news from Luxembourg until the last minute.

Austria finally accepted the clause without mentioning the term "membership" in the negotiating framework, which sets ground rules and procedures for the negotiations.

The clause now reads: "The shared objective of the negotiations is accession. There negotiations are an open-ended process, the outcome of which cannot be guaranteed beforehand."

But Turkey was promised that it will be "fully anchored in the European structures through the strongest possible bond" if Turkey is not in a position to assume in full all the obligations of membership.

On the open-endedness of the talks, Gul told the press conference early Tuesday that nobody can guarantee talks will lead to membership.

Ankara first asked to join the EU in 1963. The EU said yes in1999 and at a summit in December 2004, EU leaders decided to launch membership negotiations with Turkey this Monday.

Under EU's rules, Turkey's entry needs the nod from all 25 EU member states. Austria's insistence on a "privileged partnership" therefore becomes the last hurdle.

Turkey signed a protocol in July to extend its customs union agreement to the 10 new EU member states, including Cyprus, satisfying the conditions for the start of membership talks.

However, Ankara said at the same time that the signing of the protocol did not mean any form of political recognition of Cyprus.

The statement runs against EU rules that a new member state must recognize all its existing members.

The EU governments issued a compromise counterstatment last month, allowing Turkey to recognize Cyprus before it formally joins the EU, thus saving the process from derailment.
 
(Xinhua News Agency October 4, 2005)